After a lone gunman shot into a crowd of people at a country music concert in Las Vegas on Sunday night, many reports have gone out claiming it was the deadliest shooting in the history of the United States. While it ranks among the deadliest, it was not the deadliest shooting after all.

Among the worst

It would be correct to say the shooting was "among the worst" in US history instead of saying it was "the worst." The Las Vegas Police Department said the shooting was done from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. A lone shooter opened fire on a large crowd of people at an outdoor music festival on the Las Vegas Strip where country music star Jason Aldean was performing his last song of the night.

The shooter killed 59 people and injured 527 others.

The shooting definitely ranks among the worst, but there were other shootings that claimed the lives of more than 59 people. At least 60 people and maybe as many as 150 were killed in 1873 during a massacre in Colfax, Louisiana.

Deadliest in modern history

It would, however, be correct to say the Las Vegas concert shooting was the deadliest in modern history because it was. Up until now, there has been a long string of deadly shootings caused by a lone gunman. Before the recent shooting, the massacre on June 16, 2016, at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida topped the list when 49 people were killed and 58 were injured.

Before then, nine people were killed and one person was injured on June 18, 2015, when a single gunman opened fire at the end of a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

On December 14, 2012, a single person killed 20 six and seven-year-old students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. A shooter killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia on April 16, 2007. Another school shooting occurred at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado on April 20, 1999.

Two students from that school opened fire and killed 13 people and injured 24 others.

Between August 1, 1966, and September 16, 2013, there have been many other shootings by a lone gunman who killed 12 to 21 people and injured others. The FBI considers it to be a mass killing when four or more people are killed at one time.

The names of the shooters in all of the above killings have been intentionally omitted to not give credit to them. In almost all of the above massacres, the long gunman either killed himself or was killed by the police.
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